Just got an invite to: Synthetic Biology: Coming Up Fast! the latest webcast/live event from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). It will take place Friday, November 14, 2008 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm ET. According to the press release,

Synthetic biology is being touted by scientists and venture capitalists as “the next big thing.”  Researchers claim to be on the brink of creating artificial life in a laboratory and making the world’s first synthetic microbes.  The first blockbuster synbio drug–an affordable cure for malaria–is expected on the market by 2010.  And a whole new biofuels industry spawned by synthetic biologists that promises to conquer the globe’s energy problems seems just around the corner.

The speakers are,

Denise Caruso, former New York Times columnist and longtime analyst of technology-based issues and industries, will explore this question with the Center for American Progress’s Rick Weiss.  Caruso is the author of Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet (2006).  Weiss recently left The Washington Post after a distinguished career as one of the country’s foremost science journalists.

David Rejeski, PEN executive director, will be moderating. If you’re in the Washington, DC area you can attend but you do need to rsvp otherwise there’s the live webcast (or if the timing is bad, they will make post it later but it can take a few days). For more information, check here.